So
Adventure Time has finally concluded. After ten seasons and 283 episodes, the grand finale of the show - being as long as four regular episodes - aired this week. A lot of words and spoilers follow. Definitely don't at all read this if you haven't watched the finale and is in any way at all planning to ever do that.
So,
not everything gets neatly wrapped up. Some plot threads reach a conclusion, others are referenced, some aren't even touched upon, so there's some stuff left dangling even post-finale. Which is something that I do think plays into one of the themes of the show, a theme that absolutely has a place in the finale as well - things keep happening. Even when we don't see it, the adventures continue. There's been flashbacks and flash-forwards that show that certain things repeat. Most of the AT episodes are effectively standalone, what's been seen in the show are only a number of moments over the span of five years in the long history of Ooo - something that even has an in-universe version in the Grayble episodes. Those are effectively the in-show version of the show itself. Some characters have already been around for a thousand years or so, some are implied or confirmed to be around for another thousand. Reincarnations/versions of Finn and Jake will always be around. The show has gone to great lengths to confirm that - to paraphrase the song from the finale - things have happened, are currently happening, and will continue to happen. The status quo is definitely not maintained after the episode, but in certain ways, everything stays.
So the war that the final season built up towards never actually happens. Disappointing? I don't think so. What happens instead also plays into the themes of the show, and is a major demonstration of the character development that's happened. Finn started out as your regular kid adventurer hero, beating up evil, using violence as his default option. There was even an antire episode about that in the first season. But in the final season, he was the one to attempt the diplomatic solutions, whereas Princess Bubblegum went from the cute, literally pink princess - even if she from the very start was shown to be extremely capable in her own right and easily the smartest character in the show - to a complex character that almost went down the villain route herself before settling on being fine with not having total control over everything but not shying away from going to war when it seems inevitable. The war gets replaced by the actual final threat of the show, one that overshadows every danger they've faced before, one that's continuously been hinted at really being the ultimate evil, even behing behind the Lich to some degree. Because some characters not involved with the war at all tried to fix something completely unrelated. I'm not sure exactly how intended it was wrt the actual finale, but it can play into another minor theme the show has had - while things happen to you, other things (that might affect you anyway) happen to other people. I even want to present the title of the show as an example of how this is a thing - the full title of the show is "Adventure Time with Finn and Jake", but there's a lot of episodes in which the two main characters don't appear at all, and it definitely developed to have more of an ensemble cast - PB, Marceline, BMO and Ice King, at least, definitely became main characters as well. It was clear that everything didn't revolve around the "hero" of the show.
And the Ice King finally did get to become just Simon Petrikov again, but losing Betty forever - again - in the process. It was her choice, and it also stopped GOLB, so there's that - and it absolutely plays well into Betty's character arc, especially after she became the new Magic Man. It does have some unfortunate implications, given that Simon as the Ice King has some most likely very intentional similarities to someone suffering from Alzheimers/Dementia, and that's definitely not something that can just be cured like that. The ending montage shows that it's not necessarily a happy ending for him, as he does try to get her back somehow - he does get a new extended family in what's basically his adopted children Gunther and Marceline, and their respective partners, Turtle Princess and Princess Bubblegum, and it's a bit ambiguous if he moves on from trying to get Betty back or not. All in all, it's a very bittersweet conclusion for one of the more tragic characters in the show. I can definitely see how it's one of the more controversial choices on how to conclude things.
So yeah I actually mentioned it above, but then there's the thing I'm probably the most happy about. I didn't think they'd do it but they did, the absolute madmen.
Oh my Glob PBxMarcy is canon. After all those seasons of teasing and hints that all still contained some degree of ambiguousness to what the exact nature of their relationship was, and the only confirmation that they had been a thing in the past wasn't from the show itself, they have a full-on, on-screen, on-the-lips kiss lasting several seconds. It's also made heavily suggested that, at least for her part, even after whatever led to their prior breakup, Marceline was still in love with Bonnibel for all those years. And then in the ending montage they cuddle up together. They're extremely officially a couple after the finale. While Steven Universe did have them beat on the first same-sex kiss of the sort between main characters in a kid's show, that was between two characters that had been established to be in a relationship from the first season, whereas this one was explicitly a so-called Relationship Upgrade. Regardless of the fact that yes, they have been my AT OTP for a long time, it's proof that one step at a time, portraying LGBTQ themes and relationships even in children's shows in ways that don't treat them as a joke or a punchline (something even media not meant for kids still has some issues with), but with the same respect that hetero relationships get, becomes more and more acceptable. And that is incredibly awesome.
Adjacent to that,
something that to my surprise didn't get any form of closure or even mention was Finn's relationship status. Especially since Huntress Wizard was right there - they have shared at least two onscreen kisses and definitely have feelings for each other, but HW previously stated that they couldn't fall in love and worried it would make her soft, so their relationship seems to remain ambigiously in the PG-rated vesion of friends with benefits. But Finn is still only 17 years old at the end of the show. With Peebles and Marcy, they're both so old that there's no real point in counting anymore, have known each other for so long and been through so much together, and seen and tried so much so them getting together again really does seem like this time it's for as long as they're both still around. Finn's still a teenager who's only had one actual lasting relationship previously, and there's every chance that Huntress Wizard won't be his final romance. And Finn's age is a bit of the last theme of the show I feel like touching on - growing up. Finn was 12 at the beginning of the show, definitely still a kid, and that's what the target audience was. As the show progressed, it started involving more serious plots, heavier themes. Adventure Time was a show that really did grow up together with its audience that started watching early on, even if the target audience probably was considered to be the same from start to finish by the CN people. And it got all the better for it. Compare it to FiM - that's a show that's gotten incredibly stale for a variety of reasons, but that's nothing I'm going to go into here. But this isn't the end of Finn's adventures, not by a long shot.
Now. The opportunity still exists for all of this to be picked up on, and it most likely will - Adventure Time will continue with a comic book series literally called
Adventure Time Season 11, which will pick up after the final episode. Previous AT comics have been not exactly canon to the show for understandable reasons, as the comics would take the show up until the point the comic was made into account but the show didn't pay the comics any mind (but, I mean, since a multiverse was eventually confirmed in the show itself and at the very least a version of Finn was said to exist in all the alternate ones, the comics could easily just take place in a only slightly different alternate universe). Adam Muto also said that he thinks calling the new comic series "Season 11" is a bit of a stretch since none of the show staff are involved with it, but the way I see it, with the show finished, The S11 comic has all of that as its starting point and there won't be any further episodes to contradict what takes place in the new comics, so this time there's no reason it
can't be canon. At least that's how I'm gonna treat it.
Phew.
That really was a lot of words, but I think Adventure Time deserves it (and wrting far too many words about things is something that is extremely me). From what I can tell, I started watching it in July of 2012, so it's been with me for a little over six years, and it's absolutely the best thing in its genre I've seen during that time. So obviously I'm going to get somewhat emotional when it actually ends. And when I get emotional about something,
words happen.
Obviously, I want more Adventure Time, especially after what actually
happened in that final episode and ending montage. And, well, the comics will give me that. I'll hear the voices of the characters in my head when I read them. But I also think reaching endings is something very important, and I'm glad that the AT staff got to end it on their terms and not forced by higher-ups to keep it dragging on.
Come along with me.
